What We Become
by Rumpel0000
Summary: Leaving Hogwarts to leap into the cesspool of adulthood is hard. Leaving Hogwarts to leap into the cesspool of adulthood in the wake of a life-shattering war and falling in love with a Death Eater is even harder. Karkaroff x OC
1. To Go Unnoticed

_27 December 1980_

Dark eyes bore holes through me as we drown together in the wake an impasse. It was a combination of exhaustion, fear, and what I could only hope to be shame that drew premature lines on his face, accentuated in the eerie luminance of the alleyway. The heat that was suffocating me from the overstuffed, overstimulating bar just moments ago was being strangled by a lethargic coldness that seeped from my broken heart in sluggish waves, twisting and turning its way through my core.

My teeth chattered as my nerves caught up to what my brain was processing, sending them into a furious state of overdrive. For the first time in my life, I was struggling to speak. Each word died in my throat long before they reached my tongue, swallowed back down to the frigid emptiness inside of me.

Neither one moved, afraid of breaking the calm of a storm that would ruin us.

Is this who he truly was?

"I'm not the one walking away." _Don't leave me._ I recognized my voice as the words left me but it sounded so far away - a small whimper in a roaring abyss. It was my voice that cracked, broken and hollow - that was the final push the tears blurring my sight spill, gently sloping down my cheeks, itchy and hot. The last bit of warmth inside of me.

His face, the same face I would trace with my fingertips, unable to resist charting his countenance for each new line, hardened. But it was his eyes that gave away the pain. Sadness. Embers dying out behind the endless charcoal basins, leaving them as it would a dying man.

We had both known better. We knew it would eventually come to this. What I hadn't been expecting was for him to break first. I always thought I was the weaker one. Then again, he never _could_ tell me where his loyalties truly lie.

"We cannot go on this way, dusha moya; they'll have both our heads," he whispered, igniting a spark in the static around us.

I scoffed, unable the stop the sneer from forming on my face. "You're a _coward_." _I feel betrayed._

"But I am not a fool and, for that, I am not yet dead."

The ice snapped inside of me as I was consumed by rage, my mind jarring, racing to form a suitable argument, unable to come up with a good enough to keep on fighting between my anger and despair. Instead, I stood, frozen, crazy eyes daring him to say something and at the same time begging him to do so.

He made no move to come toward me; there was no gentle outstretch of an arm like I was used to, beckoning me forward into his embrace. Instead, he turned away from me, beginning to walk into the darkness. "Goodbye, _Grace_."

My name sounded foreign. I couldn't remember the last time he'd used it.

I couldn't tell how long I'd stood there in the alleyway, watching the black space where his back had retreated to the darkness before I collapsed to the sticky ground in anguish - the sobbing finally started.

Igor Karkaroff had ruined me.

* * *

 _23 June 1978_

I fell in step with the rambling redhead (who was obsessing over his History of Magic N.E.W.T. exam from last week) and the overly-developed Gryffindor (in my personal opinion, though she claimed envy every time I mentioned her rather voluptuous assets) as they crossed the sunny grounds.

Exams were over. Today was it. Today would be our last day at Hogwarts and after the Graduation Feast held tonight in our year's honor, we would be whisked away across the Black Lake on the same boats we'd arrived on as wide-eyed First Years. It was meant to be some sort of symbolic send-off, back into the warm bosom of childhood innocence before being pole-vaulted into the fickle web of vexing adulthood.

It should have been a happy time and a nostalgic time, where we'd hug one another, say our goodbyes and dive into the world, ready to spread our wings (or something). However, there was a disturbance in the air - thick and unspoken, pressing harder on all of us every morning as the Daily Prophet was dropped onto the table like bad-news-bombs that were responsible for sending multiple students and staff into fits of rage or broken into a pile of tears.

The Dark Lord was rising and no one was safe.

Instead, we tried to focus our attention elsewhere, keeping the thoughts of war and death and destruction to the backs of our minds, though we all knew it was the probably the most pressing matter of all. It was as if avoidance would make it go away, but the word on the street (or courtyard, rather) implied that if you weren't for the Dark Lord, then you were against him.

So, we assumed it was in our best interest to go unnoticed, sliding through the end of the school year so that we could disappear in this big, wide, world.

Only, it wasn't that simple.

Gideon Prewett was going to be an Auror, provided his N.E.W.T. scores were up to par (alongside his twin, Fabian). Auror deaths had been rolling in daily, not to mention the deaths of their family members.

Greta Catchlove (named after her famous relation, who made cheese...or something to that effect), probably would have been able to keep out of sight, if not for her remarkable ability to sleep with every male who came within a five-yard radius of her (future Death Eater or not, she showed little signs of discrimination in that sense). But I might be exaggerating only slightly.

And then there was me, Graceline Watercrest, the little half-blooded nobody who was trying to tiptoe around the dungeons without speculation from my housemates. My choice of friends didn't help the matter at hand but I couldn't see not being best friends with Gideon and Greta - they were the toppings to my pizza. I'd found Gideon in my first year, holed away in the library. We'd been study-buddies ever since (and, let's face it, my grades were average at best, so he was the one shouldering most of the weight). Greta didn't join our little group until our third year. She invited herself into our study session one night and hasn't left since.

Trying to keep out of sight was difficult, especially when you were _trying_ to and especially at Hogwarts. It's like the other students could _sense_ it and sought each opportunity to leap in to bother you.

Of course, there was always the matter of -

"Oi! A Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff, and a Slytherin walk into a bar..."

Sirius Black.

He might've actually been my number one arch nemesis if not for the whole Dark Lord matter. It was bad enough that he and his gang of merry troublemakers tottered around the entire school as if they were the most important people alive, but Black had made it his duty to provoke us on-sight ever since Sixth Year.

In our Sixth Year, the three of us had made a grave mistake. We were each to become crude notches in Black's bedpost, so to speak. Not that we actually slept with him - not even Greta - but we'd been a few of many targets of Black's serial makeout spree. Something big had happened in the Black family the previous summer, and the downfall and disownment of the heir had seemingly sent the boy nutters.

Greta was first, on the train, no less. I just wish I hadn't been the one who volunteered to find her after she'd disappeared for over an hour after 'skipping off to the loo'. She'd been on-and-off with him for most of the year.

Gideon was last. The poor boy held off until nearly the end of term, but he caught a nasty case of Spring Fever in the wake of his coming out and jumped at the opportunity to snog the attractive Gryffindor, much to Fabian's displeasure. I don't think Gideon actually regretted fooling around with Sirius. In fact, much like Greta, I'm certain that he was merely respectively shameful of it.

I didn't make it past October. I still get indigestion when I think back to my poorly made decisions that led to a fumble in the damp grass.

* * *

 _31 October 1976_

The school grounds were exceptionally quiet, save the gentle rustle of leaves as the wind disturbed them from their resting places. Promising rain, clouds were beginning to choke the moon from the night sky. It was far from surprising, as it always seemed to be raining in Scotland, though the damp chill plaguing the cool air was uncomfortably unwelcome. The lake appeared to be draped across the grounds, deceptive of its depths by its black, stagnant appearance. The earth edging the lake was sodden and muddy, but I couldn't resist dipping my feet into the murky water, mussing up my dress as I did. By day, the grounds added to the majesty of the castle; by night, however, the desolate grounds seemed eerie and forlorn, especially when the sky was squalid, laden with heavy clouds.  
She was purposefully avoiding the castle and simultaneously her friends. They'd been invited to the Gryffindor's Halloween party and was probably the first time since the Founder's Age that a Slytherin was invited to the Lion's Den. Greta and Gideon (but, let's face it, mostly Greta, who would be accompanying Black as his date) had convinced her to go but, after getting dressed up, she opted out, seeking the isolation of the grounds at night.

"Gracie!" Sirius bellowed, far too loudly. "There you are! Y'know, you're 'specially hard to find in the dark?"

Frozen in my seat by the lake, I regarded the noisy intruder with skepticism. Alone, Sirius stood with a bottle of firewhiskey in one hand, while shoving a piece of parchment into his pocket with the other. His hair was messy, even more so than the shaggy form it typically took, and it was slicked across his forehead with sweat. His collared shirt was buttoned crookedly, bunching in the places where the fabric had missed alignment, and he swayed slightly in his stance.

"Like a chameleon, you are," he continued with a slight slur of his words. "Map says Gracie's here, but where could she be? Hiding behind a tree!" He laughed heartily and I frowned. What was he getting at? "That rhymed."

I licked my dry lips, concerned over the boy's strange behavior. "Are you alright?" I asked after a moment.

"Smashing!" he said enthusiastically, moving to sit next to me. He slid on the slick earth, however, and his feet splashed into the lake, disappearing beneath the dark surface.

To help steady him, I grabbed hold of his arm (though I probably should have let him fall into the lake and drown) and he stumbled back to sit beside me.

The laugh that left him was suspiciously close to a giggle as he kicked his feet in the water, now stable and seated. "Slipp'ry."

"Are you drunk?" I asked, still feeling uneasy about Sirius' disposition. He seemed unusually chipper, the kind of happy that someone pretends to be when they're in pain. I'd seen the same tight-smile, devil-may-care attitude this year when Regulus decided to nip into Nott's stash of alcohol. Drunken Blacks are one-in-the-same, it would seem.

Nodding, he said, "Started early." He pushed the bottle in his hand towards Grace, its contents splashing about within. "Want some?"

I hesitated and probably should have stayed hesitated, but my hands reached out on their own accord, wrapping around the neck of the bottle. The first swig was aweful, just like I remembered, burning all the way down. The second wasn't any better. But, as Black and I passed the bottle to-and-fro, it became a little easier.

"Party's over?" I asked, unsure of how to make small talk with someone I didn't know.

"Nah," he chuckled. "I sneaked out."

"Didn't you help plan this party?"

He shrugged, "Wasn't having fun. Lost my date."

"How -"

"Marlene hexed her. But then she was snogging Fabian -"

"Greta?"

"Marlene."

"Oh."

"Yup. Though Pete was a riot...down to his boxers and a lampshade. I dunno where he got the lampshade."

We stared at one another for a moment before we both broke out into a fit of laughter, both falling back into the grass. And as the laughter subsided, that's when it happened. I'd like to recall that he made the first move, but in reality, I'm pretty sure I jumped on him like a cat in heat.

I blame the alcohol. And it was terrible, from what I remember. All hands and teeth and tongue, just desperate clawing for some sort of affection that was leading us nowhere. Hands wandered to places they shouldn't have and tongues began flicking ears and laving necks. It was a mess. I'd had plenty of decent snogs but that wasn't one of them.

It wasn't until his hands gripped my hips, pulling them purposefully into his, nipping at my collarbone that was exposed for his exploration, that I began to realize that things weren't quite right.

And when I said, "Stop," he did.

It was the simple word that seemed to snap him out of whatever alcohol-infused haze we'd been existing in and he rolled away from me, searching the ground for the bottle we'd lost sometime between laughter and snogging.

And when it was found, he simple tipped it upside down, in an exaggerated display to show that it was empty, spilled out onto the earth.

"It's all gone to waste, now," was all he said, before stalking off back to the castle, leaving me to wallow in my newly found self-loathing and the vague subcontext of his words.

* * *

 _23 June 1978_

It's how I found out that I hated Sirius Black and that I disgusted myself, all at the same time.

"Go on, mate," James Potter piped in, far too loudly as he squared us up. "What happens next?"

"They all get a taste of Sirius Black!"

The duo guffawed, closely followed by the echoing sniggers of Peter Pettigrew. Greta even laughed.

I raised my eyebrows, fighting the urge to snap back at the morons. I knew I shouldn't; I needed to keep my head down for _one more day_. Then I'd be free. The words I was pushing down began to turn to bile in my throat.

Gideon began tugging me along behind him and I cast one more look at the group of boys, whose members now included Remus Lupin. He gave an apologetic smile that I almost didn't catch before I followed my friends away in silence.

There was no battle to be fought, here.

* * *

My head hit the library desk with more force than I'd intended during my dramatic display of impatience. Slughorn had sent me on a special mission to fetch one Severus Snape, and my friends had abandoned me in my dark mission. I had the extreme misfortune of being exceptionally gullible as a First Year and Potter had asked me to give Snape a note. Only, he addressed him as Snivellus, so when I handed him the note (which turned out to be a rather crude drawing of Snape being devoured by some sort of snake), I also addressed him as Snivellus.

He hasn't been overly fond of me since. Then again, he never seemed particularly fond of anybody, except maybe Lily Evans. I didn't know the whole story, only that they were friends up until he called her a Mudblood in front a whole lot of students.

"Exams are over," I seethed as he glowered at me over the top of his textbook. "Slughorn wants you and I'm supposed to be getting ready for the feast!"

"You've delivered your message. I don't see any reason for you to stay here, pestering me about it." He shot me one last glare before diving back into his reading.

"Slughorn's exact words were, 'fetch him'. That means I can't go back without you."

This time, he didn't bother glancing up at me. "Are you Slughorn's dog, now?"

I sniffed, crossing my arms over my body as I let the room slip back into silence.

My foot began tapping on its own accord - I swear it - until I was the recipient of yet another dampening gaze. I wasn't about to get on Slughorn's shitlist the very last day of school. I was almost free. That meant I wasn't going anywhere without Severus Snape until I'd brought him to our Head of House.

Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how to accomplish this in any other manner than bugging the hell out of him until he finally came with me.

I plucked the newspaper from beneath his elbow, causing it to slip. Grinning sheepishly as he sneered, I glanced down at the top headline.

 **MORE DEATH EATER ALLEGATIONS DISPROVEN**

I stared down at the picture. A dark-eyed man with a brutally handsome smile shook hands with the Minister of Magic, Harold Minchum, making eye contact with the camera for only an instance before glancing away again.

The caption read: " _Igor Karkaroff during his statement to the press after being found innocent of all allegations of being involved with recent Death Eater activity..."_

Startled by a snort of laughter, I turned to find Snape no longer engrossed in his work but leaning over my shoulder to read the paper.

"Karkaroff is about as innocent as Grindelwald," he said. "At least he got off."

I forced a tight smile, unsure of how to respond to that. Instead, I cast one last glance at the man in the picture before I followed Snape out of the library.

 **End Notes:**

*dusha moya (душа моя) - _literally: 'my soul' ; term of endearment_


	2. The Trouble With Whiskey

**Author's Notes:**

Much like the first chapter, this will be hopping around in time. The dates will guide you.

* * *

 _24 December 1980_

 _"Dusha moya."_ A whisper in a noisy dream. _"S rozhdestvom."_

Lights flashed in angry hues of reds and greens. Screams tore through the night, dissolving into sobs beneath the roar of fire. So much fire. White snow turned red. Red dissolved to green. Green flashes. The night painted in green as a skull formed in the sky, a snake protruding from its laughing mouth.

 _"It's time to wake up, now. I've something to show you."_

Gideon's body lay next to his twin's, his eyes still open, glossy and devoid of that spark that was once there. The flashes of green become consuming and I kneel down beside him - my stomach knots, panic rises through my body in searing waves. He saw me. He saw through the mask, into my soul. He knew it was me. He knew it. He hesitated, distracted, wondering why the hell I was there to begin with. He saw me and now he's dead.

 _"You're having a nightmare. It's only a dream."_

It was a memory. Not just a fabrication of a terrified mind. It happened. It's still happening. Sobs escape me in gasping, heaving breaths.

And then there are arms around me, pulling me away. I want to stay. I want to mourn and to hell with the consequence. I don't fight, though. I let Igor lead me away, stealing to safety in the midst of the Death Eater's triumph. They won't notice we're missing.

 _"Wake up."_

My eyes snapped open. Drenched in my own sweat and my heart threatening to break through my chest, I found myself clinging to Igor, who patiently stroked my hair, willing away the dreams like he always did. Inhaling, I could feel my body begin to relax, his familiar scent lulling back from my panic. The musky smoke from the fireplace, the faint hint of spice from his aftershave, the lingering alcohol, and the warmth. Unfamiliar pine assaulted my senses but I was too comfortable to question it.

"Happy Christmas, little mouse." His voice was still a whisper, hoarse with fatigue. I wondered if he'd slept at all.

I kept closed my eyes again, refusing to let go even when he began to pull back. " 'S'not Christmas yet," I protested, wanting nothing more than to fall back to sleep in his arms.

Laughing, he finally managed to pull away from. "Come and see," he said. "We don't have much time."

The bed rose as he moved away from it, leaving me behind in his room.

Groaning, I groggily fished for my robe on the floor, thoroughly confused by what he was up to this time.

* * *

 _08 August 1978_

I promised my mother for what seemed like the hundredth time that _yes,_ I would be fine on my own and _no_ , I didn't need anything else. Even as I ushered her out of the door I swore on my life that if I ever needed anything that I would tell her immediately.

She stood in my doorway, with those big, watery eyes and trembling jaw, making me wish that I'd never decided to move out in the first place. "There'll always be room for you back home," she said, sniffling, "should you ever need to come back."

We hugged. It'd been forever since we'd hugged, the last being when dad had died, just after the funeral.

"I know," I said, once she let me go.

It wasn't until the door closed that I truly felt the full impact of what letting me go meant.

I was _alone._ In London. _By myself._

No Professors or Mum around to keep me safe. Only the other hand, no Professors or Mum around to enforce pointless rules.

With no furniture. Or dishes. Or toilet paper.

The money my father had left behind was to be used for the first few months of rent and a few groceries. I didn't need electricity; I was of age now and at least capable of lighting and heating my home. The only furniture I owned was from my room at home, currently piled in the bedroom here, which left me standing in the starkness of the empty whitewashed flat.

With my only passing N.E.W.T. being in Defense Against the Dark Arts - not that I took that many to begin with - my options were limited. Though, with any luck, my O in potions and E in Herbology from the O.W.L.s might land me a job down at the Apothecary in Diagon Alley. Maybe.

I needed a job.

* * *

I climbed over the piles of empty boxes I'd been tossing out of my room in an unorganized display of unpacking., tripping a few times before I made it even halfway to the door. Luckily, Greta had no qualms about letting herself in when I hadn't made it to the door in over 30 seconds.

She was carrying two large boxes of pizza, grinning broadly with Gideon following closely behind, his favorite Muggle beer held up in the air as if it were some kind of trophy. Their expressions slowly dropped as they began inspecting the new flat.

"Wow," said Gideon, "it's very..."

"Small?" Greta offered.

His eyes shot to her and he stiffly tilted his head to the side in silent code, but I was well aware of what that look meant. It was the _'Be nice!'_ look that Gideon had been giving either of us since we were thirteen. "It's cozy."

Greta snorted. "Sure." She maneuvered around the pile of boxes and into the small kitchen. "Where's your table?"

I huffed, grabbing one of the large boxes from amidst the pile. "You know, I might've been able to afford a bigger flat if one of you had agreed to move in with me," I snapped, sending them both an accusatory glare.

Gideon and Fabian had found a flat last month after having been accepted into the Auror training program under the renowned Alastor Moody, and Greta was leaving for Spain in a week for a year's apprenticeship with Sergio Martin, a famous wandmaker.

I dropped the box in the middle of the floor and rested my hands on my hips. "There. One table."

With a sigh, Gideon flourished his wand, transfiguring the box into an actual table - albeit a small one, roughly the same size as the as the cardboard structure. "Really, Grace?" He set the case down on the newly made surface with a wink.

None of us were going to address it out loud but, as we fell into an unfamiliar silence, this was going to be one of the last times the three of us would be spending time together for a long while. With Greta leaving and Gideon in training, they were well on their way to starting their new lives. As I'd expected, the three of us wouldn't quite fit together in this plan.

We'd say we'd write each other and, at first, we would. Then the letters would slowly become more sparse and eventually stop altogether with the exception of the chance holiday card. Maybe years from now, I'd run into Gideon or Greta on the street or in a shop and we'd hug and tell the other that they looked good and ask how they were doing with all of the social niceties of old acquaintances.

But we would have tonight. And pizza. And beer.

I forced a grin despite the twist of my gut telling me to hug them, sobbing, and refuse to let them live their lives. "Did you get black olives?" I peeked under the lid of the pizza box.

Laughing, Greta said, "Duh" and popped the first cap of many of the night.

* * *

 _15 September 1978_

I laid my head on the sticky bar top, exhausted and entirely uncaring of whatever semi-liquid my arm was lying in. Working in the mornings and early afternoons as a housekeeper for the Leaky Cauldron and spending my nights in an unpaid internship for the Apothecary (because evidently, N.E.W.T. level test scores were a must to start as in a paid apprenticeship) was killing me.

Death Eater attacks on Muggle-borns were becoming more frequent and Voldemort's supporters were rising dramatically in number. The world was in turmoil and I'd stopped reading the newspapers months ago if it hadn't been for Gideon's sudden break of contact. I scoured the Prophet every morning, praying not to see his name amongst the dead or missing. Greta hadn't heard from him either, not that she had the time to write that often, either.

So, the old, noisy pub at the ass-end of Diagon Alley was the perfect place to spend a Friday evening alone.

At least they had whiskey, my newest best mate.

From beside me, the barstool creaked beneath the weight of someone encroaching on my alone time with my alcohol. I peeked over my arm, finding a face that I recognized immediately from the Daily Prophet back in school.

Igor Karkaroff, who was, if there was any truth in what Snape had said in June, a Death Eater was sitting beside. Looking at me.

Dread filled me, my palms and face almost immediately feeling clamming as my heart attempted to make a break for it, hammering loudly in my chest. Stiffly, I slowly sat upright, dragging my glass to me as a distraction. Maybe if I acted as if I didn't notice his presence, he'd leave me alone. Maybe he'd thought I was dead and just came to check on me, and now that I was moving, he'd go away.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, finding his eyes still on me and I took a long drink from the glass.

 _I was going to die._

That's all there was to it. I'd gone to a pub and a Death Eater sat beside me, and now I was going to die.

"It is an awful shame to drink alone," he said, in a voice that was both dark and soft - something ebbing on the brink of dangerous and as smooth as the whiskey was going down.

I turned toward him, without thinking, immediately captured in the intensity of his gaze. His eyes, a coppery amber whose richly-colored burnish made even the cognac in his hand pale by comparison, locked with mine igniting a tension that made my panic amplify. A nervous laugh escaped my lips as I finished the rest of my drink.

"I was actually just leaving," I said, keeping my voice as even as possible while making a show of pushing my coins along the bar with one hand so I could place my other inconspicuously on my wand. _Though surely,_ my logical voice said, finally coming out of hiding, _a single Death Eater wouldn't make a scene in such a public place._

He grinned, nodding politely as I began to stand. "That too bad. I was drinking alone tonight, too."

Standing there as the man turned his back to me, I couldn't decide if it was the tug disappointment that he wasn't looking at me anymore, the extreme loneliness of the past month, or the extra bit of whiskey in my system that made me wanted to stay. Maybe it was a combination of the three.

Whatever 'it' was, it caused me to sit back down again. "Maybe I'll stay for one more," I said. Afterall, if he was going to stalk me out of the pub to kill me, I would prefer to be just a little drunker than I was.

* * *

 _18 September 1978_

I frowned as I inspected the mess on my kitchen floor. I'd set my coffee mug on the table that Gideon had transfigured for me, only to send the thing toppling over in a splintering catastrophic pile. With my wand still tucked away beneath my pillow - where I typically placed it during my paranoid drifting to sleep and forgot just about every morning once the sun had risen to chase the shadows away - I decided the mess could wait.

I was due to work in a half hour and desperately needed coffee. And probably a shower.

Just as I picked up the carafe from its burner, someone knocked at the door. With a longing glance towards the earthy-smelling liquid, I set the glass pot back down, padding along the cold floor as another, more urgent series of knocks were pounded into my door.

"I'm coming!" Agitation unintentionally found its way into my voice and I pulled the door open. Then, I froze.

Alastor Moody - _the_ Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody: badass Auror - was standing at my door alongside Sirius Black, the wanker, and Caradoc Dearborn, who'd been three years ahead of me in school.

My mouth dropped open as an icy realization washed over me: something had happened to Gideon. However, before I had time to truly register what was happening, a wand was in my face and my world turned black.

* * *

The _whooshing_ sound in my ears gave way to the muffled sound of talking, slow and garbled. Angry hisses of words, impatient stomping, slamming doors.

I blinked, bringing into focus a small sitting room that I couldn't recognize. Dark and dusty.

A face was before me suddenly, Moody again, mouth moving but his words were distant and distorted as if I was underwater. Shaking my head to try to focus made his brow drop low and angry.

A hand on his shoulder and then a wand was in front of me again.

Another whoosh and a low-pitched screech.

I blinked.

"Watercrest," Black said, his wand still pointed at me.

Glaring, I glanced back at Moody, who was still watching me sternly, that enchanted eye rolling to the side once before narrowing in on me again.

"Is it Gideon?" It was the first thing I could think of, though my throat was dry and my voice was scratchy. Had I fainted? "Is he alright?"

Black's expression softened a bit and he lowered his wand, though Mad-Eye thought nothing about lowering his.

"What association do you have with Igor Karkaroff?" Moody snapped, drawing closer to the chair in which I was seated.

I squinted and attempted to move my hands, only to find them bound to the arms of the chair. "K-Karkaroff?" I repeated, growing rapidly more nervous. Something definitely wasn't right.

"You were spotted at the Intemperate Imp last Friday night in the company of Igor Karkaroff." Black's wand was at his side now, lowered entirely as he eyed me, a curious look crossing his features.

"A known Death Eater." Moody spat.

 _Oh._

* * *

 _15 September 1978_

"What's your name?" Karkaroff asked, less-than-casually.

I missed the hidden agenda at first, something else I blame on the alcohol. In hindsight, with the speculation that he was a Death Eater and everything their cause stood for, I really should have known his motive behind his asking. He was essentially asking me if I was a Pureblood. "Gracelyn Watercrest."

"Watercrest?" His smirk slid from his face, turning impassive. "I'm unfamiliar with the name."

"My father was a Muggle."

He was silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

Growing uncomfortable in the silence, I continued, reaching for anything to move the conversation along. "And my mother was a MacDougal."

"A half-blood, then."

There was something accusatory about his tone that made my stomach fall. It wasn't that I hadn't heard it before - belonging to a House dominated by influential Pureblood families had brought that to my attention - but the statement always held an underlying jab to my inferiority. My father had been a Muggle but he was a very good man.

"That's right," I said, flatly, reaching for my drink for backup.

He continued to study me for a few more moments as if I were some kind of experimental creature that had fallen from the sky before a grin reformed on his face. "My father was a bastard, vechnaya pamyat." He tipped his glass toward mine, clinking them together. "Vashe zrodovye! Let's drink to better fathers." He winked at me before downing the amber liquid.

"Vasha z'drovovia," I echoed uncomfortably, entirely sure I'd butchered the pronunciation. A pang of guilt for my otherwise normal parents struck me, so I drowned it in whiskey. Arguing about what he considered 'good parentage' was not going to end in my favor.

He nodded, that same handsome smile lighting his features as before. "We'll be getting along just fine, little half-blooded MacDougal," he said.

* * *

 _18 September 1978_

"He sat next to me at the pub," I said. "We had a drink!"

"Do you make a habit of drinking with Death Eaters?" Moody asked.

I groaned, struggling in my chair. "The Prophet said that that was disproven." The words felt strange on my tongue, but lying always did, even if it was by omission of information.

Moody pointed behind him, the enchanted eye rolling back in his head while the other remained fixated on me. "Black, the veritaserum in the case. She'll tell us what she knows."

 _Veritaserum?_ I choked in surprise. What exactly did they think I knew? The conversation that night had revolved around Karkaroff's years at Durmstrang in Scandinavia and my interest in the local Apothecary. It's not as if there had been plans made to burn down Muggle neighborhoods or anything remotely related to Death Eater business, _whatever that entailed._

Black didn't argue, dutifully rifling through Moody's trunk for the small vial.

I opened my mouth to protest and the door to the small room swung open with a bang. A familiar redhead entered, his face drawn out and pale.

"Gideon?" I asked, unbelievably relieved to see my friend.

"I thought I told you to keep him out of this?" Moody asked as Dearborn as he followed Gideon through the door.

Dearborn held his hands up defensively. "I tried."

"Tried? Doesn't look like you tried all that much!"

Gideon gestured to me, keeping his gaze on Moody. "What are you doing? And why are we at Black's flat?"

"Couldn't very well give away Headquarters, could we?" Black said.

"Perhaps some explanations are in order." A calm, greying wizard in blue and yellow robes entered the room, bringing the beginning of whatever argument that was about to happen to an abrupt halt.

If I hadn't been already extremely confused, I certainly was now. "Professor Dumbledore?"

* * *

 **End Notes:**

Translations:

Dusha moya - "my soul"; a term of endearment

S rozhdestvom - "Happy Christmas"

vechanya pamyat - "eternal memory"; attribution to a funeral

vashe zrodovye - "to your health"; cheers

vasha z'drovovia - Grace's complete butchering of the toast ;)


	3. A Date and a Graphorn

_15 September 1978_

Standing on the concrete landing of my third floor flat had been more confusing than it did in that single moment.

On one hand, I'd let a _probably_ Death Eater escort me back to my flat because I'd done a number on knocking back the whiskey and side-along apparation seemed like a better alternative to getting splinched or taking a wrong turn in the Floo. I'd led a stranger to my doormat and panic signals were being forwarded to my brain, a quick succession of warning flags and red lights.

On the other hand, I was standing inches away from a man whose smile made my stomach dance with my intestines and whose ardent gaze made my toes twitch. It was probably the alcohol causing me to over-romanticize my feelings but, in the moment, they were driving that stupid smile I could feel on my face. They were in control and, just then, I wanted them to be in control.

Flashes of wild fantasies—being pushed up against the rough concrete, stumbling through my darkened flat, limbs tangling in bedsheets, languid, lingering kisses beneath the early-morning light—came to an abrupt end as Karkaroff gave me a small nod, gesturing over the balcony's railing.

"You live in a Muggle neighborhood?"

There were a solid twelve seconds in which my brain wasn't registering his question. That little logical voice was busy busting out of solitary confinement to beat back the erotic images bombarding my brainspace.

"I—erm." A hot blush worked its way up my neck as expectantly waited for a response, eyebrows raised in bemusement. "London. I mean—" I waved my wand behind my back, lowering the wards and fumbling for my door handle (an escape attempt was crucial, else I might have dropped dead from embarrassment). "The rent. It's cheap."

As I turned to hide away in my flat—certain that if I stayed, I'd only continue to make a fool out of myself—I heard Karkaroff call after me.

"I'll be seeing you again, though, half-blooded MacDougal?"

"Grace," I said.

"Grace."

"I, erm, I don't know." I resisted looking back over my shoulder, trying to keep my attention focused on the darkened living room beyond the cracked door. My plan for avoiding any kind of involvement in the war was beginning to form some steady cracks. With Gideon being an Auror-in-training as it was, becoming involved with a You-Know-Who supporter was probably not such a great idea—no matter what effects he was having on my heartbeat or how many moths he was awakening in my stomach, not to mention the way he my knees trembled a little when he looked at me that way, all white teeth and playful eyes.

"I'll be at the pub next Friday around the same time," he said. "If you're there, maybe we'll have another drink?"

There was a soft _pop_ and I finally chanced turning my head to look behind me. The spot where Karkaroff had been before was now unoccupied, and I slipped behind my door. As I closed it, I leaned against it, resting my spinning head in the relief of the blackened room, silently confessing to myself that I would, indeed, be going to meet him next week.

Something was seriously wrong with me.

* * *

 _18 September 1978_

I rubbed at my newly-freed wrists, gladly shuffling closer to Gideon as he stood protectively between Moody, Black, and I. The entire world had gone mad and I had been officially swept up in the whirlwind. What's worse is I had inadvertently (but also, somewhat knowingly) dove headfirst in the midst of a war I wanted nothing to do with. iThat figures./i

"She might be out lead to actually putting Karkaroff and some of the others in _Azkaban_ ," Black seethed, throwing his arms up in the air.

Gideon's wand was pointed at Black and I felt around for mine, finding it missing and wondering if Moody had taken it or if it was still back on my nightstand. "She has nothing to do with any of this."

"Then ask her why she was seen fraternizing with him!"

The redhead opened his mouth to retort but stopped before he managed to get the words out. He stiffly glanced at me, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

I gave him my best sheepish smile. "Funny story, really…"

The door opened again, with a bang. James Potter, in all of his stupidly messy-haired glory, strode in, a crooked grin on his face. "There you are, mate, I've been—" He stopped, the smirk sliding away from his face slowly as he took in all the people in the room. "What's going on?"

After a moment of silence, Dumbledore took the opportunity to speak. "As it would appear," he said lightly, "we are conducting a series of 'off-the-books' interrogations." He tilted his head towards me.

Grimacing, I tried to catch Gideon's eye but he pointedly avoided contact.

"At your flat?" Potter asked Black.

"It's a long story."

I scoffed. "Not really," I said, unable to keep the words from tumbling out of my mouth, even though I knew it was one of those times to keep quiet. "You broke into my place, kidnapped me, and tied me to a chair.

Black's eyes raised and he pointed a finger at me. "You opened the door. Nobody 'broke into' anything. Besides you're the one hanging around with Death Eaters."

"That was disproven."

"Then ask him to show you his arm next Friday!"

How long had they been watching me? Where the hell had they been? I wracked my brain in an attempt to figure out if I had remembered seeing any of them that night, but I couldn't. I could feel Gideon's eyes on me again, only this time the questions were underlined with accusation. Et tu _, Brute?_

"I don't owe any of you an explanation!" I seethed, squaring up with Black. "I was at the pub having a drink. My friends—" I purposefully glanced at Gideon over my shoulder, watching him stiffen at the word "—haven't been in contact with me for ages. Karkaroff sat next to me and also had a drink. He told me about his time at school. Then, he made sure I made it home okay and implied that he wanted to have another drink with me. Is that a crime, Auror Moody?"

It was Moody's turn to stiffen.

"I'm afraid it's a turbulent time, Miss Watercrest," Dumbledore said. "It has put us all on edge, though we have no intention of inaccurately accusing anyone of any false crime, isn't that right Alastor?"

Moody sneered, his eyes rolling. "Yeah, that's right."

"Though, you must understand, Miss Watercrest, that there was no ill intention in bringing you here. You would not have been brought to our attention had you not been involved in such extenuating circumstances."

I gritted my teeth. 'Extenuating circumstances.' Perhaps I was better off being a hermit for the rest of my life, that way I wouldn't be caught up in such 'extenuating circumstances,' anymore.

"But, perhaps there is something you can do for us, given the arisen opportunity."

I watched Dumbledore uneasily, not entirely trusting his intentions, but waiting for him to continue, nonetheless.

* * *

 _22 September 1978_

The atmosphere of the pub had severely altered from the previous week. Patrons laughed heartily. Unperturbed by the others surrounding them, conversations flowed boisterously and freely, their volumes increasing at the height of a joke or a climax of a tale. Glasses clinked and the bitter liquids sloshed in mugs. The grimy, old Intemperate Imp seemed a little less lonesome with all the contagious carefree attitudes drifting through the air.

At first, the peasant top seemed like a good idea. I was able to hide the golden beetle in the flowing drapes pewter-colored fabric without worrying about it being discovered. As the night wore on, however, I'd noticed just how many things those damn sleeves were getting caught on and I continuously had to shove them up my arms to free my hands.

After a while, however, even my sleeves became less worrisome.

I'd almost forgotten what I was supposed to be doing while listening to Karkaroff's voice.

"When I was 12, one of my older cousins stole my grandfather's stuffed Graphorn," he said with a small smirk. "It was his prized possession, he claimed to have poached in himself, but if I knew my grandfather, he either bought it or stole it from whoever actually killed the beast."

I shifted the weight of my head to my hand as I leaned on our wobbly corner table. "How could your cousin have smuggled out an entire Graphorn without your grandfather noticing?"

"No, no; he didn't take the whole thing. He cut off the horns to pawn—they're worth an extraordinarily large sum of money." He tipped his stein at me before taking a swig. "My grandfather believed that, without the horns, the thing was nothing more than a stuffed toy. He kept it, though."

"You're _lying,_ " I said, laughing. "You can't just have a stuffed Graphorn. They're endangered. They've been endangered for longer than either of us have been alive. There're all sorts of laws passed about hunting them, let alone stuffing their corpses for show."

"But I'm not!" He insisted, laughing with me. "I will show you. Come."

He stood, offering me his hand.

* * *

 _18 September 1978_

"You want me to what?" I demanded, automatically looking to Gideon for backup.

Blue eyes became a muddled mass of uncertainty and my heart fell. Something had happened since we'd last seen each other. Something had made him wary and untrusting, even of me.

* * *

 _09 March 1977_

"Looks like you're all alone now, you great slimy snake."

I glanced up from my History of Magic homework in the little annex of a third-floor corridor, hidden away behind a thick, dusty tapestry. Or, at least, I thought it was hidden. Dirk Cresswell and his proxy band of merry arseholes barged in to disrupt my quiet time.

The weight of the wand in my pocket was becoming more pronounced as I stared at the four pointed at me. I stilled, waiting patiently for either a curse or an explanation. I wasn't sure what exactly I'd done and getting to my wand to defend myself was unrealistic. I wasn't unused to the snide remarks concerning generalizations surrounding my house, but 'great slimy snake' was completely unoriginal.

Not to mention, inaccurate. Snakes aren't slimy. "Snakes aren't slimy."

I cringed immediately at my impeccable incapability of keeping my mouth closed.

Marlene McKinnon glowered at me, closing in on my personal space, jabbing her wand threateningly toward me as I lifted my History text as some sort of pathetic excuse for a shield. Her locked eye contact would have been the perfect opportunity to slip my wand out if only I wasn't busy cowering behind the book.

In my defense, McKinnon stood a full head taller than me and had a noteworthy temper. Not to mention her renowned skill when it came to dueling or the fact that I was heavily outnumbered.

"We know what your friend did to Mary Macdonald, Watercrest," she snapped, that bouncy blond hair moving with every crisply enunciated word.

My eyebrows rose on their own accord, my mind racing to remember if Gideon or Greta had ever mentioned Macdonald before or, more importantly, having an issue with her. Greta seemed to be the most likely culprit, but I couldn't imagine what Greta could have done to antagonize the group of Gryffindors in front of me. I rose from my seat slowly, trying not to incite an attack. "I don't think—"

"Oi!" Gideon was at my side, wand out and ready. Gideon was always ready. "Let her alone."

I took the opportunity, under the cover of distraction, to procure my own wand as Greta came up along my other side. Safety in numbers, after all.

"Why do you two even hang out with her?" McKinnon asked. "She's creepy. And her friends used Dark Magic on a student!"

Greta sneered at her housemates. "She doesn't even associate with Mulciber."

"Mulciber?" I glanced between the group. "This is about _Mulciber_?" I groaned, turning away from my attackers and began aggressively shoving my books in my bag. "I'm not going to answer for that moron."

Gideon helped me gather my stuff while Greta shooed away the rest of her housemates.

"Mulciber attacked MacDonald?" I asked lowly.

He nodded sharply. "Yeah, but, don't worry—she's fine, and we know you didn't have anything to do with it."

* * *

 _18 September 1978_

But now, even when I'd asked to speak with him away from the group—much to Moody's great displeasure—he regarded me warily.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Gideon demanded quietly. "Why were you out on a date with Karkaroff?"

"A date?" I sneered, shaking my head defiantly. "I'm wasn't on a date, you idiot. I was having a drink. He sat down. He also had a drink. I told you this already."

"This isn't a game! We're in the middle of a war; people are dying, and you're off drinking with Death Eaters!"

"The Prophet said it wasn't true. They let him go—"

"The Ministry is compromised. Of course he's a Death Eater—he's goddamn Igor Karkaroff. He's known for torturing and murdering Muggles! For fun! Did—did you fall and hit your head?" He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking about anything!" I hissed. "No. No, I was thinking about how I haven't heard from one of my best mates in weeks—how I've been waiting for his name to show up in the paper among the dead every day because that's the only reason I can see him not even writing me! I was thinking that even Greta's letters were becoming more scarce. I was thinking about how I was left utterly alone after school while you—"

"I'm fighting a war!" he snapped. "A war that you wanted nothing to do with. Yet, here you are—DRINKING WITH DEATH EATERS."

I suddenly felt small, like a child being reprimanded for doing something naughty. The feeling was quickly replaced by bitter anger. "You have no right to tell me what I can or can't do. How do you even know that Karkaroff did any of those things? Did you see him?"

His expression changed several times in rapid-motion, as if he was trying to wrap his head around the situation and failing miserably. "You can't just—" He stopped, placing his hand on my shoulder and looking me directly in the eyes. His voice was considerably lower as he said, "There's a war going on. You need to make sure you're on the right side of it, whether you're involved or not."

I frowned. Of course I was on the right side of the war, wasn't I? Just because I had a drink with a guy didn't make me a traitor, even though it seemed like an unpopular opinion. I gritted my teeth, trying to let my anger go. "Fine. Fine. No more drinking with possible (or disproven) Death Eaters."

"Just one more drink," Black said from across the room.

"I never agreed to—" I looked around at the faces in the room, each one waiting for an answer (some more patiently than others). "Look, I'm not some kind of secret agent. How do you expect me to be able to spy on Igor Karkaroff?"

At once, Moody said, "With this" and he dropped a golden button on the table with a quiet metallic click. It wobbled for a few moments before distorting, springing free six small appendages, a head, and two long, curly antennae. The small golden beetle chirped and scuttled around on the scuffed surface before finding Moody's sleeve, where it attached itself inconspicuously beneath the cuff. It folded itself back into a button, fastening onto the fabric.

"You'll only have to touch it to activate it," Potter said. "You meet with Karkaroff, the bug attaches itself to Karkaroff, picks up anything that he might say—if he meets with You-Know-Who, you know? And then the next week, just meet with him again. It'll be enchanted to come back to you. No harm, no foul. Then you never have to see him again."

"He knows where I live," I mumbled, wincing at the collective tightening in the room.

* * *

 _22 September 1978_

"There are over a hundred," Igor said, as we walked through the line of posed, taxidermied magical creatures. "Each one of them as disquieting as the last."

I laughed uncomfortably, wary of the stiffly moving dead animals, enchanted to blink and turn their heads, watching us as we traversed the high-ceilinged hall.

"They disturb me, too," he said, flashing me a wry smile.

Slowing to a stop, I cocked my head to the side. "Why keep them, then?"

"They were my grandfather's greatest accomplishments, in his own opinion. He won countless numbers of metals...for the legal ones." He draped his hand along my shoulders to gently guide me forward down the dimly lit corridor, causing me to shiver. I couldn't decide if the quake in my stomach was from trepidation or anticipation or merely from the fact that he was touching me, so I tried to focus my attention on what he was saying. "I had them moved here from Turkey when I inherited his estate."

A particularly displeased-looking Diricawl caught my attention as it stretched its feathered wings to a breadth four times my height. "How-how many estates did you inherit, exactly?"

"Seven. Three in Russia, one in England, one in Turkey, and one in India."

Our pace slowed as I turned to look at him, feeling flush in the wake of his gaze again. I was an idiot, to say the least. My mantra became a chanted, ideatheaterdeatheaterdeatheater/i in my mind to reel myself back in because, with every blink we stood in close proximity, those damn erotic flashes were back, pooling heat deep in my belly—dead animals, be damned.

But he nudged me to turn to my left, where I was met with the tentacled maw of a Graphorn, its substantial size making me feel small and vulnerable by comparison. As Karkaroff said, two golden stumps were perched at the top of his its heads were the only jaggedly cut remainder of its once glorious horns.

I coughed in surprise as it lifted its head proudly in the air. "Y-your grandfather killed a Graphorn."

"So he claims."

I stepped back from the statue, eyeing Karkaroff as he distractedly observed the hunched-over beast. Steeling my nerves, I'd decided that it was an appropriate time to set the plan into motion. As I fiddled with those flowing sleeves, however, I couldn't find the button I'd fastened there before leaving the flat.

"Looking for something?" he asked.

My eyes snapped toward him as he watched me, his easy posture reassuring. "No," I said, adjusting my sleeves in what I hoped looked like an unsuspicious manner.

"That's fortunate," he said, smiling softly as he stepped toward me, "because if you were looking for your little recording device, you would have been very displeased to find out that it was disabled back in the pub."

A distinct cold began to sink through my skin, freezing me in place as I reached for my wand—which was no longer in my pocket. I tried for the other pocket, fighting with the fabric on my sleeves in my panic.

He made no move for his. He didn't move at all, in fact, but stood observing me with his arms folded across his chest, an amused smirk playing on his lips.

"You're very trusting, for a spy," he murmured, stepping closer.

My mouth went dry. I tried to swallow in vain as Karkaroff slowly circled me. "I'm not a spy," I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I once again became very aware that I might actually die.

He held out my wand before me and my stomach dropped. "Not a good one, no. Not overly observant, either." His face remained impassive as he watched me so profoundly that I had to clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. "What am I to do with you, you deceptive little mouse."

"I'm not a mouse." I cannot shut up.

He laughed—an actual, hearty laugh—that startled me into jumping. "Better to be a mouse than a rat."

I was going to die.


	4. Plan B is Spain

_AN: SO! This will probably be the only chapter update this month. NaNo is kicking my behind this year (and it's only day nine) so finding the time to edit and upload has been difficult. The good news is that one of my NaNo projects is more of this! Hooray! As such, this chapter will be following a much more linear storyline than previous chapters but, not to worry, we'll hop around a little in the next chapter to fill in some gaps! See you on the other side of November!_

* * *

 _24 December 1980_

The corridor at the bottom of the stairs always seemed longer (and colder) first thing in the morning. The rounded edges of the tall, arched windows were brushed with fluffy, freshly fallen snow, the frost on the windows promising a chilly morning to all who ventured outside. Unfortunately, outside was where the trees lived we would need to haul one from the forests today, just like last year.

I wandered the marbled floors, peeking through doorways in a failing attempt to find where he'd hurried off to when I noticed a faint glow coming from the parlor.

Igor stood quietly observing his handiwork, arm crossed across his middle to prop the one thoughtfully covering his mouth. His eyes reflected the soft, white glow, lost in some sort of contemplation-an internal struggle that he wasn't letting slip loose.

The tree was set up, already strung with lights. Board boxes were scattered around the skirt, housing the baubles, garland, and trinkets we'd carefully packed away the year before.

"You picked out the tree already?" I asked. My voice reflected my concern. Last year we'd spent the entire day together, meticulously picking out the perfect tree, choosing the perfect decorations and hanging them with care, and making a couple of our own. We'd read to each other over hot buttered rum and, in a lazy haze, fallen asleep on the chaise together in front of the fire.

Something in the atmosphere was terribly different.

He looked to me finally, drawing the arm away from his face and around himself. "I wanted to start early." He looked away, back to the tree, before clearing his throat. "I'll be leaving this afternoon. Business will be taking me away for a few days, I'm afraid."

I frowned at his formality, circling around in front of him to establish eye contact, but he watched my lips instead. "' _Business'_? Really?" I clicked my tongue when he dropped his hands, face displaying his great exasperation. "Can't He wait until after Christmas? There can't be anything _that_ pressing-"

"You know we can't talk about this," he snapped, turning away to lift a mug off the coffee table and leaving an air of finality hanging in the air. He handed me my coffee. "Please-" his voice softened, eyes begging, "please, let's just have our day."

I pressed my lips together, urging the argument back down my throat. "Okay," I muttered, gratefully taking a sip of the bitter coffee. All the questions I'd wanted to ask ( _What about Christmas Dinner with your family? What about me? Do you actually_ enjoy _being a Death Eater? Do you_ like _murdering people? Have you seen what this war is doing to people? To people I care about? Do you care that Gideon's dead? Are you happy now?)_ drowned in my coffee as I sat down on the plush ottoman, just as bitter as the drink.

* * *

 _21 September 1978_

"Is this _really_ necessary?" I complained for the third time as Gideon and Potter hauled a few essential boxes into Black's flat.

Gideon glared at me overtop the cardboard, silencing my griping. "You're the one who showed a Death Eater where you lived, Grace," he said, shortly, setting the box next to the ajar door of my soon-to-be room.

"It's perfect, if you think about it," Potter said, adding his box next to Gideon's. "You can lay low here for a while in case anything goes wrong, but it'll still look like you live at your flat so they won't come looking for you." He patted me on the shoulder. "Besides, Sirius has loads of wards up around here-you'll be just fine."

I resisted an eye roll and an unwarranted snippy response- _Oh, thank goodness Potter and Black have come to my rescue_ -and headed back towards the door for my last box. _Five boxes of 'essentials'_. It's not as if I had that much stuff to begin with but having to dwindle down my already sparse possessions for a (hopefully) temporary relocation was completely nightmarish. I spent the better part of two hours deciding if I could get away without wearing underwear so that I could sneak my coffee pot along (though Black insisted he already owned own, 'somewhere').

"And Black was gracious enough to let you stay for free, so you won't have any extra expenses," Gideon reminded me as I reentered through the doorway.

I gave him a strained smile. "I'll be sure to send him a Thank You card." I slipped into my 'new room', shoving the door closed roughly behind me for good measure.

It was undecided if I was in such great peril that I should need to live with Black, but Gideon insisted. He actually insisted on me sleeping on his and Fabian's couch but Black had to chime in about a 'spare room'. Who gets a flat with a spare room? Was he intending for someone else to live with him? Did they flake out?

The walls were untouched, just as white and barren as my flat had been, though his flat was considerably larger than mine. Hell, the bedroom alone was larger than my living room and this was the 'guest bedroom'! Complete with 'guest bed' and 'spare bedding'. Fucking Black.

In fact, the darkwood bedframe matched the nightstands and bureau. It was a set, embellished with whimsical decorative carvings. The duvet smelled like sandalwood and the floorboards were chilly. I wanted to go home.

I stuffed the boxes in the corner and collapsed on the bed, dramatically, counting down the time before I had to get ready to head to work. I half-expected Gideon to come pester me-to try to make me feel better about moving in-but after listening to a brief, muffled conversation outside my bedroom door, I heard the front door shut and silence fall over the flat.

 _22 September 1978_

 _"What am I to do with you, you deceptive little mouse."_

 _"I'm not a mouse." I cannot shut up._

 _He laughed-an actual, hearty laugh-that startled me into jumping. "Better to be a mouse than a rat."_

 _I was going to die._

He nodded, coming to stand still before me. I honestly wasn't sure if I should try to run, cower on the floor, or just stand there, so I went completely still, hoping that I was going to wake up from whatever hell this was and I'd be back in my flat, the entire meeting Karkaroff thing just a dream.

Instead of angry or murderous or villainous, he looked rather disappointed as he stepped away from me, glancing away. There were several long moments of unending silence where I swear he was preparing to draw his wand. Maybe he'd find a creative way to kill me. Maybe he'd enchant all of these freakish taxidermied creatures to hunt me down in some gruesome manhunt. Maybe I'd have a chance to live if I could outrun them (but who was I kidding-I couldn't remember the last time I ran).

Instead, the wand he drew was my own, which he handed me.

"Do svidaniya, _Grace_ ," he said. "I sincerely hope you improve upon your abilities, should you continue to attempt to fool people." He began to walk away, leaving me baffled in the corridor. "You are very bad at lying."

* * *

 _22_ September _1978_

"And he just let you walk away?" Gideon demanded, spinning me around and checking me over as if he thought I was lying and was hiding some kind of grave injury.

I shook him off again. " _Yes_ , and I'm fine! But the mission's kind of off."

"Not necessarily," Dumbledore mused, appraising me thoughtfully. "Karkaroff has shown interest in her. Perhaps he could be swayed, then, should he be led to believe that Miss Watercrest had been forced into spying and is seeking his help."

My brows knitted together as Dumbledore's words registered. _Karkaroff already thought I was bad at lying_ _but, to be perfectly honest, I didn't feel as though I_ did _have much of a choice when the Order had asked me to spy on him_.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me!" Gideon scoffed, waving at me as if to exemplify something. "That's madness! It'll never work."

Black leaned casually against the bookcase pushed up to the wall. "Oi! Give her some credit. She managed to not get killed this last time around. I think it could work."

"Nobody asked you," Gideon shot back.

"Dumbledore makes a point," Moody said, "but it's far too risky."

Black snorted. "We're at _war_ ; every move we make is risky." He pushed away from the wall. "Besides, she can stay here with me until it's safe to go back on her own."

Potter nodded slowly. "It could give us the advantage of having someone to relay information from _You-Know-Who_. We could be one step ahead." He folded his arms across his chest. "Who knows when we're going to get this opportunity again, or _if_ we'll ever get it again"

Gideon was becoming increasingly irate. "Do you honestly think I'm going to let her do something so completely idiotic?"

"Can I say something?"

The room stilled around me, all eyes finding me and I swallowed. I remembered the disappointed look on Karkaroff's face, the way his smiles left me weak at the knees, and the way I genuinely enjoyed our past conversations. I remembered the extreme loneliness that came with the weeks prior to meeting him when Gideon had cut off contact with me and I hardly heard from Greta-when the only constant form of contact was my mother and my employers. I remembered the same loneliness disappearing slowly when Karkaroff listened to me, paying attention to every word that came out of my mouth.

My stomach did flip-flops at the thought of seeing him again and sunk somewhere deep inside me at the thought of deceiving him. Some desperate romantic notion hammered on my brain, telling me that I could have the best of both worlds if I played my cards right. Besides, I still had no solid evidence that Karkaroff actually _was_ a Death Eater.

I cleared my throat. "I think… I think it's a good idea." My lips felt numb as the words spilled over them, my mind racing to come up with some sort of game plan.

The room remained silent for several beats longer.

"We'll have to introduce her to the rest of the Order," Moody said in his business-as-usual way. "Let them know that she'll be spying for us."

"We're already unsure if everyone in the Order is trustworthy," Potter said immediately. "If someone is feeding information to the Dark Lord, then we should keep it between us."

Black clapped his hands together. "Brilliant, James! And if there is a spy amongst us, she'll be able to report back to us."

"Don't get ahead of yourselves," Dumbledore said gravely. "We're not talking about initiating her into the Death Eaters."

I was becoming increasingly fed up with being treated like I wasn't standing in the room with them as they continued to talk about me and my future.

"Aren't we?" Gideon seethed unevenly. He was flexing his fingers at his side, looking entirely unsure what to do with himself. "Grace, you can't just… It's madness! They'll kill you if they find out!"

"Then they won't find out."

"Karkaroff already figured you out in under two hours!" He threw his hands up in the air.

He made a valid point. I was still working on an actual plan for all of this.

"If I remember correctly," Dumbledore said, "you received high marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts-is that right? I distinctly remember something to do with Occlumency and Legilimency."

I nodded. "I wrote about them for my N.E.W.T. assessment. I did quite well."

" _That's theory_!" Gideon protested again.

Dumbledore smiled distantly. "And I'm sure with a little bit of practice, Miss Watercrest, that you'll excel in the area quite well."

Again, I nodded, only this time with much more uncertainty stabbing me in the gut. I wasn't sure where he was going with this but it was a nice change of pace to have someone believe in me.

"That might prove useful in the future. We'll have something arranged," Moody said.

"Grace," Gideon pleaded. "Please, just think about this. Can you do that? Just take a couple days to consider this- _really_ think it through."

I sighed, resigning to do what Gideon asked of me as the group once again broke into chatter about what I would or would not be doing during my 'mission'.

* * *

 _23 September 1978_

I cracked open my bedroom door, thankful it didn't creak as I slid it across the plush hall carpeting. A quick glance left and right and I tip-toed barefooted through the chunky hall and into the kitchen, making sure to be extra quiet by Black's door just in case he was still lurking around the flat somewhere.

By all technicalities, this _was_ his flat and he was completely justified to be lurking around wherever he pleased but I still wasn't comfortable living with him. In fact, I'd been doing a decent job of avoiding him by slipping into my room directly between work and work (and then after work) and only coming out when it was absolutely necessary.

But I desperately needed some coffee. Black said there would be a coffee maker around this place and I would find it. It was my primary objective, especially if I would be dealing with trying to come up with a decent enough plan to both have an excuse to see Karkaroff again and appease Gideon. That was something best mulled over while sipping on a hot cup of coffee.

With a quick perimeter check, I started gingerly opening up cabinets in search of the coffee pot that wasn't on the counter-and who doesn't keep their coffee maker on the countertop? Only goddamn Sirius Black.

As I began searching through the lower cabinets, not surprised to see that Black's cupboards were exceptionally bare, someone cleared their throat from behind me. The noise startled me, causing me to jump and bump the back of my head on the wooden frame.

"Can I help you?" Black asked with a laugh.

I sent him my best sneer, certain that it wasn't working when he grinned back, and rubbed my head. "Coffee maker," I said, shortly.

Walking to the stovetop, he lifted a kettle from the burner. "Water's already hot."

I blinked, fighting my morning agitation through the grogginess. "I want coffee, not tea," I snapped, turning back to fish through the cabinets again.

"You've said that." He snorted and I glanced back at him over my shoulder as he began shaking a canister noisily. "You put the grounds in the water, and there you have your coffee."

I stood up quickly, inspecting the tin in his hand. " _Soluble coffee?"_ I read slowly, eyeing both the tin and Black skeptically.

"Try it," he insisted, shoving it into my hands and I frowned.

Soluble coffee. What in the world was soluble coffee?

He poured me a mug of hot water as I read over the direction on the packaging. He was right, I just added the coffee to the water and _boom_ -coffee! Anything that happened instantaneously was nice. In fact, if this was as easy as it sounded, I might switch altogether-no more waiting for the perculator when I forgot to set the timer...no more forgetting to set the timer! Just boil water and go!

Sure enough, as I stirred the finely ground mixture into the water, it rapidly dissipated, turning a color akin to coffee. Excited for that first, earthy taste of coffee, I cooled it down to drinking temperature and took a swig, waiting for the happiness to come.

Only, it didn't taste like coffee.

I roughly swallowed, gagging slightly on the burnt taste and coughed. I gently set down the cup and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Black asked, peeking his head out of the kitchen doorway.

" _Coffee_."

* * *

 _29 September 1978_

After having spent the previous night hanging around the pub without anything to show for it, I decided that a house call would be in order.

I stood in front of the solid doors, observing the intricate carvings on the front and wondering why in the world I agreed to do this in the first place. I'd been given a free pass to go back to my ordinary life with even Alastair Moody agreeing that this was too much of a risk to be taking. I could've gone back to my flat (maybe), go back to my job and my apprenticeship, gone back to my extreme loneliness and isolation.

I wrapped my fingers around the knocker and quickly set off a succession of three _tap, tap, taps!_ before I could talk myself down from it. My heart began to hammer in my chest and my mouth went dry. _What was I doing?_

Gideon had taken to not speaking to me since I agreed to take the mission...not that he'd kept the communication lines open recently, anyway. Still, was this going to be worth it? Was I going to be able to help the war? Or, what I most hoped would be the case, be able to prove Karkaroff innocent and go on with my life, free from worry?

I still wasn't convinced he was a Death Eater.

But I still wasn't convinced he wasn't.

As the door began to open, I had to fight to keep myself from fleeing into the night. I could still go back, tell them I'd changed my mind and that I wouldn't do this stupid, silly mission that was bound to get me killed. I could still make up with Gideon and hope he wouldn't leave me behind this time. I could still go on a long vacation to visit Greta and, who knows, maybe stay there and start over. Maybe she'd rent a flat with me. We'd be away from the center point of the war and out of immediate turmoil. Maybe, even, we could convince Gideon to come with us.

In an anticlimactic reveal, a small house-elf stood on the other side of the door, curiously appraising me. My heart, which I was certain was going to explode with anxiety, steadied itself. "Master Karkaroff's guest is early," she said, pleasantly. "Master is in the drawing room-this way, Dudgey will show the Miss."

I began to follow rag-clad creature through a labyrinth of hallways-the same I'd been lost in the night Karkaroff sent me away. Ignoring the snorting laughter of the painted bearded man who had mocked me that night, I began to wonder how Karkaroff could have been expecting me.

Panic constricted my breathing and I slowed my pace. Had Karkaroff somehow been spying on _me?_ No. There was no way.

Was he expecting someone else? My stomach dropped and I frowned pointedly at a large, brassy vase housing some rather sinister-looking vines as we rounded our way to the sitting room. My hand was on my wand this time; I wouldn't be caught off-guard... _again_.

"Master, Dudgey has brought you a guest," the creature announced, just as I was about to turn and escape the house. Go back to the plan B I had constructed in the foyer. Afterall, I've heard that Spain was positively lovely. I'd always wanted to visit.

Karkaroff turned, his eyes widening fractionally in what I sincerely hoped was the pleasant sort of surprise. He stood quietly for a moment, blinking, before dismissing Dudgey shortly. His face didn't seem to know what expression to keep and suddenly, he was standing just in front of me, his hand on my elbow.

I stepped back instinctively. "H-hi?"

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice quietly and urgent. "You shouldn't be here."

I struggled to remember what my plan A had been and shrank back as anger muddled together with anxiety in his eyes. "I just wanted to see you." When his expression didn't change, I added, meekly, " _I'm sorry_! I didn't mean-"

"You need to leave," he said, starting to guide me back out of the drawing room. "Right now."

Before we made it to the hallway, another succession of knocks sounded from the door and he stopped, swearing. "Upstairs," he said, spinning me around to look at him. "Find a room upstairs and stay there. Do not make any noise and _do not_ come out until I come and get you. Do you understand?"

I nodded slowly, still not quite understanding the circumstances I'd walked into.

With a hand on my back, he pushed me to the second exit to the room, pointing left down another hallway. "Two doors, turn right-the stairs are there. Go!"


End file.
